The Shouldice Hospital Limited
Case 1
Below, we will discuss various issues involved with Shouldice Hospital Limited.
These items include: the process design - operational and medical, analysis of the model, whether the process is good or bad, if changes need to be made and if these changes would be good or bad for Shouldice.
Description of Process - Process Design
Shouldice Hospital works like a flow shop that uses a combination of line flow and batch processes, with a majority completed as a line flows. The employees of the hospital move from patient to patient to get them examined and admitted while working in stages to get them prepared for surgery. The main batch process is the group orientation to discuss the procedure before the meal times.
This hospital only operates on external types of abdominal hernias. Because there is a specific technique to operate on patients, the performed procedures are fairly consistent. Each surgeon learns the technique over several months. These surgeons perform over 600 hernia operations per year while other surgeons perform 25 to 50. This specific method requires the hospital to be somewhat inflexible with the patients they operate on. They will not accept patients with any high risk factors such as being overweight or having heart problems. The Shouldice Hospital provides a low cost service to the patients and shorter recovery period while maintaining their consistent high quality procedures demonstrated by the number of operations that are performed each year.
Case 1
Below, we will discuss various issues involved with Shouldice Hospital Limited.
These items include: the process design - operational and medical, analysis of the model, whether the process is good or bad, if changes need to be made and if these changes would be good or bad for Shouldice.
Description of Process - Process Design
Shouldice Hospital works like a flow shop that uses a combination of line flow and batch processes, with a majority completed as a line flows. The employees of the hospital move from patient to patient to get them examined and admitted while working in stages to get them prepared for surgery. The main batch process is the group orientation to discuss the procedure before the meal times.
This hospital only operates on external types of abdominal hernias. Because there is a specific technique to operate on patients, the performed procedures are fairly consistent. Each surgeon learns the technique over several months. These surgeons perform over 600 hernia operations per year while other surgeons perform 25 to 50. This specific method requires the hospital to be somewhat inflexible with the patients they operate on. They will not accept patients with any high risk factors such as being overweight or having heart problems. The Shouldice Hospital provides a low cost service to the patients and shorter recovery period while maintaining their consistent high quality procedures demonstrated by the number of operations that are performed each year.
